Mi Electric Scooter paving the way for smart transportation

In 2011, Wang Ye, founder and CEO of Ninebot, was surprised at the number of electric scooters he saw when traveling to Southern Europe.

Wang Ye, founder and CEO of Ninebot

He realized that other than motorcycles and electric bikes, personal mobility devices have become a smart solution in highly congested urban areas.

Though motor and electric bikes have their own strengths, electric scooters beat them in at least two ways. First, electric scooters are lighter – normally weighing between 10-15 kg. Second, they are foldable and easy to maneuver in crowded cities.

In Europe, especially Southern and Western Europe, electric scooters are very popular, particularly because automobiles are restricted from entering downtown areas of many European cities.

Today, the market volume for electric scooters across the globe is 3 to 5 million units.

And a large part of this demand comes from China. In large Chinese metropolitans like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, electric scooters are more popular than in smaller cities and towns. The reasons are obvious: heavier traffic and a faster pace of life. Besides, motor bikes are forbidden in main areas in several large cities, while electric bikes are not as convenient as electric scooters.

Mi Electric Scooter

You’ve probably heard of Ninebot, because our popular self-balancing scooter was made by this company and carries its brand, but you might not know that this is also the portfolio company in Mi Ecosystem that’s behind our Mi Electric Scooter.

Ninebot is a Beijing-based company and merged with Segway in 2015, the US-based, world-leading, personal mobility device maker in 2015. Xiaomi is one of the major investors of Ninebot.

Because of its experience and resources, Wang decided to further tap Xiaomi’s distribution network of leading suppliers in order to branch out further into the last-mile smart transportation industry.

Beautiful and smart

At that time, there were already many electric scooters in the market, but the Ninebot team wanted to make something unique.

“After a great deal of product research, we believe we’ve created something unique to the marketplace, blending award-winning style with superior performance that stands out among the competition,” said Wang.”

Wang said the goal of the Mi Electric Scooter was to be beautiful and smart. As Xiaomi’s Mi Ecosystem products have unique industrial design style and strict ID standards, the manufacturing team experimented multiple times to optimize the electric scooter’s design. The painting procedure alone had over 30 tests to achieve the right look. For these efforts, the product has received the coveted Best of the Best of the Red Dot Design Award and the Good Design Best 100 Award.

Practicality is also key to the Mi Electric scooter. To figure out the best riding experience, Ninebot bought 50-60 different types of electric scooters for research. As a result, its highly durable tires can ride for 5000 km, or 250 hours, for a continuous high speed of 20 km/hour. As the scooter’s tires do not come in a standard size, we equip all our global versions with one to two extra tires and tools for replacing.

Like other smart Mi Ecosystem products, Mi Electric Scooter can be remotely controlled by an app via Bluetooth. When it is paired with the app, users can track their average riding speed, distance of their latest ride, their cycling habits, as well as remaining power of the scooter.

With such developments in the transportation industry, we are optimistic about the future of mobility, as it becomes even more innovative and intuitive on the road, providing more possibilities to explore the world.